Preaching to the Poor, Brokenhearted Captives

And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. Luke 4:17-19 (KJV)

Brother Jeff, Brother Ben and I attended the 2011 Paso Robles Wine Festival. It was a beautiful sunny day and the park was full of people. I didn’t capture any footage of the size of the crowd within the event. I estimate there were no less than 800-1,000 people.

When we drove up to the event and saw the crowd gathered there, we were delighted. But we would soon find out that wouldn't even be able to get to them - at least in the manner we had planned.

We planned to enter the park and distribute Gospel tracts and engage people in 1-2-1 conversation – then finish the day out preaching on the streets near the event. However, the city had installed a temporary fence around the perimeter of the park. Needless to say our “plan” was altered by our Sovereign GOD.

Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that."
James 4:15 (NASB)

As you'll see, our plan was quickly abandoned and we started out the day preaching to the poor, brokenhearted captives through the fence. This entailed lifting up our voices so that people would hear the Good News. But lifting up our voices with the full counsel of GOD came with a price – being noticed by the wine festival organizers and ultimately city law enforcement.

Oh no!

But even this worked out to the glory of GOD. What follows is our initial effort reaching the people behind the fence with the Gospel.

Don’t miss my next blog entry because right after my preaching in this video, Bother Jeff preaches and the Holy Spirit orchestrates an a really cool encounter with an individual who was there to shut down our preaching.